Jay Cutler releases a pass against the Green Bay Packers on Dec. 29 at Soldier Field.

Speculation around quarterback Jay Cutler’s future with the Chicago Bears — or, increasingly in the days since the team’s season ended with a loss to the archrival Green Bay Packers in a do-or-die regular-season-ending-game at a snowy Soldier Field, an absence thereof — has ended with a new contract that could be described as surprising, surprisingly early and surprisingly lengthy.

The Bears, according to the Chicago Sun-Times, have rewarded Cutler, 30, who’s said to be holidaymaking with reality-TV-star wife Kristin Cavallari (rather than, as fans hoped as recently as the final seconds of that Sunday-night Packers match-up, game-plan-making with his teammates), with a seven-season commitment, according to the Chicago Sun-Times, which had no financial details.

As to his Packers opposite number, playoffs-bound Aaron Rodgers finds himself in the awkward position of having to quantify for the world just how interested he is in the fairer sex. For the record, he “really, really like[s] women.”

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